Bureaucrats paid to stay home

OTTAWA • Thousands of federal bureaucrats who were told to work from home as a result of the COVID-19 virus are not actually working because their internet servers can’t handle more than “essential” government services.

Since Monday, most federal departments are asking staff who were sent home to stay off internal servers if they aren’t working on core or critical services. That’s because most ministries have significant limitations on how many people can simultaneously access work servers from outside the office.

“Imagine when you used to have to connect to the internet with a dial-up connection. That’s what the situation is now. Every minute counts, so you connect, you download what you need, and then you get off,” union leader Debi Daviau said about government VPNs (Virtual Privacy Networks).

Bureaucrats whose work involves sensitive information, such as classified, secret or even some protected-level documents or dossiers are most affected and are essentially on paid leave.

The Department of National Defence issued a directive late last week advising that only “essential core activities” will be maintained for the foreseeable future. Thus, all other staff should remain at home and stay away from the department’s remote system.

“Only DND staff conducting essential core activities should access (Defence Virtual Private Networking Infrastructure) from home. This is to minimize burden on the Information Management and IT systems,” says DND.

At Crown-Indigenous Relations and Northern Affairs Canada (CIRNAC), employees who aren’t delivering “essential services” are asked to only access the department’s network during a two-hour window, between 8 p.m. and 10 p.m. (EDT) so they can “retrieve documents and update email.”

In the meantime, staff are “exceptionally” asked to use their personal email for unclassified information when possible.

Similarly, employees at Canada Revenue Agency who perform “non-critical services” have been asked to take paid leave from March 15 to April 5, according to spokesman Dany Morin.

Shared Services Canada — the government’s IT department — assures that it can support the teleworking employees necessary to maintain “essential services” throughout government.

But since the Treasury Board Secretariat issued a directive to all federal departments to allow teleworking when possible, SSC has been regularly imploring bureaucrats to keep VPN use to a minimum.

“When using VPN, we ask that only necessary applications be used and to keep internet usage to what is essential — do not use streaming services and use social media only if needed,” Shared Services Canada president Paul Glover tweeted on Tuesday.

After that tweet, Shared Services confirmed to National Post that it is in fact blocking access to certain websites while on a government VPN.

“Until network capacity is increased departments are taking action to limit non-essential network usage and reducing non-essential activities and blocking non-essential social media sites for all Government of Canada (ie. video-streaming, personal social media accounts),” the department said in an email.

Shared Services also told National Post the department is “working with vendors” to increase capacity throughout their network.

ERROL MCGIHON / POSTMEDIA NEWS The Service Canada office within the Government Services offices at Ottawa City Hall was closed as of Monday.